


Merest Breath of a Circumstance

by NamelesslyNightlock



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: (Blink and you miss it), Attraction, Canon Divergence - Avengers (2012), Canon-Typical Violence, Dubious Morality, First Meetings, Flirting, Frostiron Bingo Round 1, Loki (Marvel) Does What He Wants, Lust at First Sight, M/M, Partial Mind Control, Pre-Slash, Tony Stark Does What He Wants
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-10
Updated: 2019-08-10
Packaged: 2020-08-14 05:55:39
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,400
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20187391
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/NamelesslyNightlock/pseuds/NamelesslyNightlock
Summary: Tonyknewthat going to the opera in Stuttgart to ‘relax’ after being rejected from the Avengers Initiative wasn’t a good idea– but he hadn’t exactly expected to witness an unfairly gorgeous pyscho attempt to gouge out an eyeball, either.





	Merest Breath of a Circumstance

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Rabentochter](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Rabentochter/gifts).

> This one is all **Rabentochter’s** fault.  
  
(Title from _The Power of One_ by Bryce Courtenay, not that it has anything to do with the book I just love that quote xD)  
  
Thank you to **KasumiAFKGod** for helping me with tags!  
  
**Square I4**— _Trope: Different First Meeting._

Tony _knew_ that the trip was going to go badly. He’d said so, and he’d even had JARVIS take it down on the record. He had told Pepper it was going to go horribly wrong, and had she listened?

Nope, of course not.

She had been so sure that he was in need of some time off to relax and destress after that mess with Vanko and after SHIELD had rejected him from the Avengers Initiative (based on data taken while he had been _dying_, he might add– but who cared, he didn’t want to be part of Fury’s super-secret boyband anyway) and had sent him to Germany. And, you know, whatever, Germany is a fun place– but was he allowed to do any of the _fun_ things Germany had to offer?

You guessed it.

_Of fucking course not_.

He was being sent to the _opera_ of all places, and nothing good happened at the opera. Not _ever_.

And okay, so maybe he hadn’t been expecting there to be a literal attempted _murder_ right in front of the whole crowd, before they had even gone in to take their seats. But hey, his point still stood.

Perhaps Tony should have seen it coming though, if not from right at the start then at least when he saw the would-be-killer descending those stairs. You see, the pre-show speech had just started and Tony was already _bored_, and his gaze had been caught by something pretty and _far_ more interesting than the old guy speaking German– a man in a dark suit and a gold and green scarf, holding a short cane of some kind. And maybe it was the predatory walk, or maybe the look in his eye, or maybe just the way that the suit fit him so very _perfectly _– or perhaps the combination of all those things – but something about him made Tony’s mouth go dry.

And, yeah. So maybe he was a little distracted, and maybe it took him a couple of seconds to react after the guy walloped a security guard over the head with his cane and then grabbed the speechmaker by the throat—

But hey, Tony was Iron Man. It was only polite to give the bad guys a couple of seconds’ head start. Wouldn’t be fair, otherwise.

And besides, it only took a few seconds after _that_ for Tony to pull his lightweight Iron Man gauntlet down over his hand from where it had been stored under his sleeve, aim the repulsor at the unfairly gorgeous psycho, and then blast him off the top of the speechmaker and directly into the wall.

People were screaming by that point, but thankfully they all seemed to have enough sense to be running for the exits. Tony grabbed the rattled older gentleman and shoved him toward the door as well, and then turned to watch the criminal extract himself from the crater in the wall.

“Well,” the guy said, his voice a kind of low drawl that sent a shiver down Tony’s spine. “I cannot say that I was expecting _this.”_

“I guess I’m just unprecedented,” Tony said, moving a little closer but making sure to keep his distance– and to keep the repulsor at the ready. He clapped his hands in slow, mocking applause, half as an excuse to keep the weapon in front of him, and half for the fun of it. “Well done though, really. Tackling that guy in the middle of a massive crowd, oh yes, very subtle.”

“Subtlety is for people who have a need to hide,” the man replied.

Tony lifted a brow, unimpressed. “And you don’t?”

“Of course not.” The guy smirked, but the smile was sharp and didn’t quite match the sudden flare in his eyes. “There is nothing a mortal could do to me that would leave a mark.”

“Mortal, huh?” The word didn’t sit quite right in Tony’s mind, but it _did_ ring a bell– hadn’t SHIELD recently dealt with someone who claimed to be a– oh, _hell_ no. “Wait a second,” Tony groaned. “You’re not a… one of those… who are you, exactly?”

The man ran his free hand down the front of his suit, and Tony watched in surprise as all of the dust and rubble from the wall melted away in a glimmer of green, leaving the suit as pristine as it had been when he had descended the stairs.

No _freaking_ way. That had to be some kind of advanced tech, right? Not way that was _m—_

“My name is Loki,” the man said, a touch of arrogance bleeding through his straight-backed stance and dancing along the crisp accent which didn’t quite seem to match anywhere on Earth. “Of Asgard.”

“And you’re not from around here?” Tony asked, almost crossing his arms but pausing when he remembered the repulsor. “Well, okay, there’s one foolproof way to test this. Talk to me about mosquitoes– are they, or are they not an endangered species?”

Loki frowned. “I know you are wasting my time,” he hissed, cutting his cane through the air– though thankfully this time, it wasn’t aiming to crack any skulls, likely just to threaten. He stalked closer, his stride purposeful and his lips twisted into a snarl as he pressed the glowing blue end of the cane forward—

“Oh no,” Tony said, holding up his hand and aiming the already charged repulsor directly at Loki’s head. “I wouldn’t do that if I were you.”

Loki looked at it with disdain. “That will not harm me—”

“Oh really?” Tony asked. “Then why have you stopped?”

The glare that was sent in Tony’s direction could have cut through glass, and Loki was quite clearly grinding his teeth in frustration. But his eyes were almost wary now as he glanced back to the repulsor again—

The repulsor which, to be honest, didn’t have all that much juice left in it. It was a new project of his and wasn’t totally developed– and only lasted a few uses. Really, it would have been better if he had a full suit– but _someone_ had stopped Tony from bringing one. Thankfully, though, it seemed his bullshitting skills were still on point, because Loki backed down and gave Tony another opening.

“Now. Why don’t you tell me what you’re doing here?”

Unfortunately, the question only made the corner of Loki’s lips lift in an arrogant kind of sneer– and before anything else could be said—

“Sir, I am sorry to interrupt,” JARVIS said, speaking loudly from the speaker system still set up in the corner of the room– good old JARVIS, hacking in to absolutely everywhere. “But I think you should know that SHIELD are on their way– Agent Romanoff and Captain Rogers are in one quinjet, and are being followed by a half dozen agents in another.”

“Oh, I see how it is,” Tony muttered under his breath. “_I’m_ too narcissistic but they’ll include the two faced spy and the dancing Man with a Plan.”

“You sound upset with them,” Loki said, his voice too curious for him to be up to any good– though at least the end of his cane was no longer glowing quite so brightly, and he seemed _less_ on his guard. “Would you perhaps consider—”

“I’m not going to help you do anything illegal,” Tony warned. “If you think you can talk me into killing people or, gouging out eyeballs or whatever it was you were doing—”

“I was not going to _gouge_ it out,” Loki replied, sounding almost insulted. “The device would clamp around the eye to run a deep scan—”

“Ah yes,” Tony cut in, nodding sagely. “_Clamping_ sounds so much less painful, you’re right.”

“You ruined my plan,” Loki hissed. “All I needed was that eyeball before they arrested me—”

“Whoa, whoa,” Tony said, ignoring the eyeball thing for now and focusing on the more important aspect of that. “You _wanted _to get caught for this? What exactly are you trying to achieve here?”

There was a moment where Tony thought Loki was going to just ignore the repulsor and tear Tony limb from limb with his bare hands, such was the force of his glare. But it really did only last a moment before it melted into something more… _calculating_, as if he were actually beginning to consider letting Tony – a complete stranger who had not long before blasted him with a repulsor – know the details of his plan. It seemed ludicrous, but sure enough, the moment that Loki came to his decision was painted clearly across his face.

“Have you heard of the Tesseract?”

Uh, _yes_, Tony had heard of that freaking thing. Kind of hard not to, with his father being who he was– and he knew enough about it that just the name sent his gut plummeting into a pit of dread.

“You want to steal it?” Tony asked.

“Of course not,” Loki scoffed, and Tony almost relaxed until– “I stole it already. That was the easy part– but I _need_ to use it to bring an army through so that I can invade your planet.”

Tony was half aware that he probably should have been more concerned by that than he was– or at least, concerned over slightly different things. But Loki had said it so matter-of-factly, so clearly and without that touch of dramatic flare that _should_ have accompanied a villainous monologue that Tony began to wonder if maybe… there was something more going on here than it seemed.

Because Loki _really_ didn’t strike Tony as the stupid type – quite the exact opposite, actually – and just admitting a plan like this to someone he didn’t know…

Well.

“You _need_ to, huh?” Tony asked pointedly.

The response was as sharp as it was crystal clear. “Yes.”

Tony narrowed his eyes. “Okay. And, for the sake of your villain monologue, of course– what is it that you’re trying to achieve, here?”

Loki seemed to consider him for a moment before giving his answer.

“My freedom.”

And okay, that – spoken with feeling, with a touch of roughness on the second syllable – _that_ was the truth.

“And you’re going to get it by getting _arrested?”_ Tony asked, confused.

“In a way,” Loki replied. “Not now, but… down the track. I suppose I shall be exchanging one prison for another.”

“That doesn’t sound very free at all—”

“A gilded cell is still a cell,” Loki said pointedly, his eyes boring into Tony as if they were trying to impress something very serious. “I do know that. But it is still _better_ than a cell that wears its darkness on the outside. At least when everything feels like it is kind, it is easier to _pretend.”_

“Okay, that’s just sad,” Tony pointed out– but even though he knew he must be missing a hell of a lot of detail, there was one thing he somehow knew for _sure._ “We need to get you out of whatever mess you’ve found yourself in, yeah?”

Rather than looking pleased at having found help – from someone Loki had wanted to attack, no less – Loki only frowned, his gaze once again assessing. “Why are you doing this?” he asked– though it sounded more like an interrogation than a simple question, as if he were trying to reassure himself of something.

“Maybe I’m a good person,” Tony shrugged. “Maybe I like you, or maybe I’m just bored. But either way—”

“ETA two minutes, Sir,” JARVIS interrupted.

“You say you’re after your freedom. I’ll wager this is a fight you’re not planning to win, and I don’t think that’s going to go well for anyone,” Tony continued– and when Loki’s lips quirked, he was sure that he had hit the mark. “But what if there’s a better way for this? What if we work together, use the Tesseract and whatever arsenals the two of us can get our hands on and _fight_ for your freedom that way, rather than getting you locked up?”

“You don’t know what we’re up against,” Loki commented.

“And you don’t know what I’m capable of,” Tony shot back. Then he grinned, and took another short step forward– bringing them close enough now that he had to tilt up his chin to meet Loki’s gaze. “And besides. You’re already using the word _we.” _

Loki narrowed his eyes, though he somehow looked _amused_– a nice change from the harshness of before. “You are a remarkably frustrating being.”

Tony couldn’t help feeling proud at that. “Are you calling me clever?” he asked, arching a brow even as his lips curled up into a satisfied smirk.

“For a mortal, perhaps,” Loki replied, turning his head slightly– and Tony felt Loki’s cool breath brush over his cheek.

“Uncalled for.”

“But true.” Loki paused there for a moment before speaking again. “If we are going to do this… where do you propose we start? Your SHIELD will be here at any moment.”

And _yes_, Tony knew that what he was about to do was incredibly stupid. Loki was an alien who had openly admitted to be planning to take over the planet– who had been in the process of _‘clamping’ someone’s eyeball_ when they had first met not long before. But he was clearly in a bad spot, and needed help to get himself out of it– and _yeah, okay,_ so he was attractive. But that had _nothing_ to do with it, obviously—

Tony just… couldn’t help himself.

He curled his fingers in Loki’s scarf, the smooth material sliding over his skin as he tugged it gently and pressed up on his toes to look Loki in the eye. “Come back to my tower,” he suggested, his voice a low whisper. “I’ll pour you a drink.”

“And then we can talk properly about the incoming _plague?”_ Tony could tell that Loki didn’t mean SHIELD– but that didn’t change his answer.

“For as long as you’d like.”

Loki’s answering smile was as sharp as it was hypnotic, and Tony found himself wondering whether he’d been right or wrong about the opera after all– because this felt like it was probably a disaster, but _oh_ it made Tony feel good.

Talking to Loki was like flirting with death– like standing on the edge of a cliff and just _daring_ the wind to give you that final push—

Yes, it could mean a gruesome end, but god the fall would be _glorious_.


End file.
